Military Identity Theft

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 21, 2014

Given the right opportunity, (trauma) it strikes without mercy. It seems harmless at first as it penetrates your memory while you wait for your brain to reboot allowing you to go back to the way you were before, but when you are not paying attention, it gets stronger.

Everything stored in your system is infected. Your memory files become infected. The entire system starts to perform with issues. Slower connections to the outside world. Crashes leaving you to start all over again. Frustration builds, anger grows and you pull back from wanting to communicate knowing your system needs more help than you can do yourself, you wait until it gets bad enough to take it in to be fixed. Too often you waited too long and a minor virus spreads to wipe out your entire hard drive.

You can replace the computer and start all over again. Pretend that the files you lost didn't really matter to you but you know they were actually priceless. You are not a computer and you cannot simply replace your mind. You memories are part of you but those memories can become trapped behind stronger memories and those memories corrupt others.

Military identity theft isn't about some thug knowing computer coding enough get your personal information and take what you have. It is more about a thief knowing your coding and how to hit you as hard as possible to rob you of a part of who you are. It is called PTSD.

By the time you turn 25 the military and all that came with it became a part of who you are. Most never thought of doing anything else as if it was part of your DNA before you joined. That is a problem as much as it is part of the recovery.

Old enough by 18 to vote and join the military but not old enough to drink.

You are old enough to be called Veteran before 25 but not old enough to rent a car.

20s and beyond According to recent findings, the human brain does not reach full maturity until at least the mid-20s. (See J. Giedd in References.) The specific changes that follow young adulthood are not yet well studied, but it is known that they involve increased myelination and continued adding and pruning of neurons. As a number of researchers have put it, "the rental car companies have it right." The brain isn't fully mature at 16, when we are allowed to drive, or at 18, when we are allowed to vote, or at 21, when we are allowed to drink, but closer to 25, when we are allowed to rent a car.

As a veteran, the military life, and all that came with it, is part of you. That is why you can never fully fit back into the civilian world. Why would you want to? After all, while you know what it is like to have all the regular problems civilians have, they have no clue what it was like for you. It is one of the reasons veterans spend their free time with other veterans.

You are not selfish or you would have done something else with your life instead of risking it for the sake of someone else on a daily basis. Sure, you may act selfish if you have PTSD, but that is part of feeling lousy.

All the reports on military suicides are up no matter how much they talk about prevention and awareness. Seems like the same story when it comes to computers like the one you're on right now. Being aware of what is going on in the world outside of your room bring little protection to for you.

Next month is "suicide awareness month" but most are wondering what the point is. Numbers go up even though programs to prevent them have also increased. We know more about the number of suicides than ever before but less about how to actually raise awareness of what PTSD is and what it does. For all the talk about raising awareness, it is time we actually start to help you be aware of what you can do to help yourself fix your hard drive.

It is time to recover your memory and protect it.

For a start, go to the top of Wounded Times and in the search field, put in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, military suicides and combat but don't stop there. Put in spiritual healing too. Time to be aware of facts and how to start healing.